Emerald Studies in Deviant Leisure: Deviance and Leisure in the Late-Capitalist City. By Thomas Raymen

“Thomas Raymen brings together cutting edge social theory and immersive fieldwork, rendering Parkour a subject of serious intellectual import… A landmark text.” – Dr Travis Linnemann, of the School of Justice Studies, Eastern Kentucky University and ASC Critical Criminologist of the Year 2017.

Taking us on an ethnographic journey into the spatially transgressive practice of parkour and freerunning, Parkour, Deviance and Leisure in the Late-Capitalist City: An Ethnography attempts to explain and untangle some of the contradictions that surround this popular lifestyle sport and its exclusion from our hyper-regulated cities. While the existing criminological wisdom suggests that these practices are a form of politicised resistance, this book positions parkour and freerunning as hyper-conformist to the underlying values of consumer capitalism and explains how late-capitalism has created a contradiction for itself in which it must stoke desire for these lifestyle practices whilst also excluding their free practice from central urban spaces.

Drawing on the emergent deviant leisure perspective, this book takes us into the life-worlds of young people who are attempting to navigate the challenges and anxieties of early adulthood. For the young people in this study, consumer capitalism’s commodification of rebellious iconography offered unique identities of ‘cool individualism’ and opportunities for flexibilised employment; while the post-industrial ‘creative city’ attempted to harness parkour’s practice, prohibitively if necessary, into approved spatial contexts under the buzzwords of ‘culture’ and ‘creativity’.

This book offers a vital contribution to the criminological literature on spatial transgression, and in doing so, engages in a critical reappraisal of the evolution of the relationships between work, leisure, identity and urban space in consumer capitalism.

“Every once in a while, a social scientist comes along who is willing to defy convention and forge ahead with a radically different understanding of society and its problems. Thomas Raymen is one such social scientist.” – Simon Winlow, Professor of Criminology, Northumbria University